The
following commentary was written for the VPR Commentators Brunch 05/19/12. The
generic subject: “When Worlds Collide.”

Worlds
Collide, when a seventy something man becomes part of a long line with mostly
young teenage girls on the opening day of the movie version of their favorite
book.

When
I reached the head of the line, I said to the young ticket seller “One senior
for The Hunger Games please.” She gave me a quizzical look as if to say - are
you sure?

I
was sure, because I wanted to know why so many young people were attracted to
this violent, dystopian tale. As for the violence - there is a profoundly
violent story line. The “games” are an annual, Survivor-like fight to the death
among 24 impoverished teenagers - televised live to perpetuate fear and mind
control over the masses.

For
many of the younger ones in the audience the attraction was apparently the Romeo
and Juliet part of the story - with an expected ending reflecting Shakespeare’s
version.

The
actual on-screen violence was about what is shown in most of the previews of
coming attractions.

On
one level, the Hunger Games is futurist fiction. But most good science fiction
from Brave New World to 1984 is not really about the future.

In
these classics, Huxley and Orwell use the future as allegory or metaphor- to
warn against present ay trends.

That said, the new world that Hunger Games
depicts is one in which the 99% -the masses - live confined, subsistent lives,
almost like slaves. They labor to provide the food and raw materials for the 1%
- the cruel rulers who live in a futuristic city with every conceivable luxury
and creature comfort. In the few days before the games, the 24 teenagers are
given a taste of this highlife, coiffed and elegantly dressed and treated like
American Idol -type celebrities. Huge crowds cheer them. A TV host grovels over
them - blithely ignoring the fact that all but one will be dead once the “games’
are over.

Celebrity
is indeed transitory.

There
is action, suspense and a bit of a surprise ending. But it doesn't take a
futurist to recognize this as a cautionary tale. And from what I’ve heard, many
young people have had no trouble figuring that out either. So perhaps our worlds
didn’t really collide after all.